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So far we've only heated our colubrids with the stuff but it's cheap, inexpensive, and easy to wire in and manipulate with a dimmer switch. (dimmers are not even needed most of the time.

They stuff we use is 4 watts per foot...otherwise we buy the really cheap stuff from home depot which is 1.6 watts per foot but we have to double up the strands to keep it hot enough.

Anyone else had success with rope lighting???

I'd love to see pictures...I'll try to get some pictures of our racks up when our digital camera is working again.
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Chris Vanderwees
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I think this is a great idea, but I have one question: Are the lights halogen with a long life? I would hate to be needing to replace the rope lights every year or so, unless they are readily available and easily replaced.

Also, you can do the same thing with non-light-emitting rope heaters that are available now from various sources (Big Apple, Creative Pet Supply, Reptile Supplies, etc). Just wind them through holes in the back of the rack.

np

It says on the box they last 25000 hours...so at 14 hours a day that's something like 4 years.

They carry em' at all the home depots and wally marts round here.
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Chris Vanderwees
REPTILE SALES AND INFORMATION
E-mail Me
1.2.0 Bearded Dragons
1.1.0 Crested Geckos
1.2.0 Veiled Chameleons
3.4.0 Corn Snakes
1.0.0 Tokay Geckos
1.2.0 California Kingsnakes
1.3.0 South Florida Kingsnakes
1.1.0 Albino Sonoran Gopher Snakes
1.4.0 Leopard Geckos
0.1.0 Green Iguanas

Good to hear that this is working well for you. It's something I've been planning to try for a while.

There was some concern about a year ago that the longevity of the life would be reduced by using a dimmer but that turned out to be the US distributor of the product and not the manufacturer.

At any rate, could you describe you set and give us an idea of how much heat the rope provides?

What is you ambient room temp, what is your rack made of, does it have a solid back, etc.?

That was horrible. Let me try again...

Good to hear that this is working well for you. It's something I've been planning to try for a while.

There was some concern about a year ago that the longevity of these lights would be reduced by using a dimmer. Fortunately that turned out to be a concern of the US distributor of the product and not the manufacturer.

At any rate, could you describe your rack setup and give us an idea of how much heat the rope provides?

What is your ambient room temp, what is the rack made of, does it have a solid back, what is the temperature in the boxes near the light, away from the light, etc.?

Thanks.

The racks are made of melamine...we house colubrids in them...

The tubs are 28 quarts...and the rope lights are rigged through the back...(we keep the lids on the tubs...it keeps heat and snakes both inside)

The front stays at roughly 78-80 degrees and the back stays at roughly 83-86 degrees. This depends on how high or low you are with the tubs on the rack...the bottom tubs stay coolest so you usually have to dim the top sets of lights to balance it out.

The lights give out 4 watts per foot...and the new ones we bought only give out 1.6 watts per foot so we just double them up to make 3.2 watts per foot...they are cheap and easy to work with...

I personally think they are the greatest thing since Kraft Dinner!

And we all know kraft dinner is good stuff.
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Chris Vanderwees
REPTILE SALES AND INFORMATION
E-mail Me
1.2.0 Bearded Dragons
1.1.0 Crested Geckos
1.2.0 Veiled Chameleons
3.4.0 Corn Snakes
1.0.0 Tokay Geckos
1.2.0 California Kingsnakes
1.3.0 South Florida Kingsnakes
1.1.0 Albino Sonoran Gopher Snakes
1.4.0 Leopard Geckos
0.1.0 Green Iguanas

...
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0.1 Spotted Python
and always looking for more!